


these dreams like ashes float away

by howls



Category: Bleach
Genre: Eldritch Urahara Kisuke, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21745390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howls/pseuds/howls
Summary: Ever since Ichigo refused to leave something well enough alone, a shadow man would visit him once, or twice, a month. (What he never realized was that there was more going on in those moments than the shadow man would reveal. For now, at least. He could never refuse Ichigo for long.)
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 3
Kudos: 115
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	these dreams like ashes float away

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt** : The Thing Whispering in the Dark

_It’s nearly midnight_ , the darkness said. _Shouldn’t you be sleeping?_

Ichigo watched the clock hanging on his bedroom wall. The little hand _tick-ticked_ its way around in a circle, counting down the seconds to the next minute. 

Down the hall, his sisters slept in their room, their snores audible given the distance. Downstairs, his father was cleaning up the clinic, singing loudly to himself, the timbre wafting up the stairs to his room. 

Ichigo breathed in deeply, felt the strain of his lungs as it expanded, then exhaled. It was minutes to midnight, the full moon shone brightly in the sky, streaming into his room. It made shadows spread out on the floor and reach the walls, figures appearing and clawing across the light to him.

 _Ichigo_ , it said. Its voice dark and shrill enough, it made his ears throb in pain. _You don’t have to wait up for me…. I’ll always come for you._

Ichigo watched with detached interest, he’s seen this charade far too many times growing up to be truly affected. _He_ should know this by now. _Then again_ , Ichigo thought, as a hand emerged fully across the beam of light on the floor, leaving a strip of darkness that shouldn’t be, _he’s always loved his dramatics._

He looked past the shadowy hand, now dragging a large mass across the floor and creeping up his bed, to the clock on the wall. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick. Clang._

It was midnight.

The shadow grasped his hand. Its weight changed from nothing to something tangible, its claws deep in his flesh. Ichigo let it happen, used to the routine of his blood rising to the surface and the shadow consuming it greedily. Ichigo watched, relaxed into the pillows against the headboard, as the shadow morphed into a man of flesh and bone from the blood it drank.

The man was dressed in an old haori, the bottom edge fringed in diamond-like shapes. Ichigo never could tell what was underneath the haori, aside from the dark green coloring from what little light the man let illuminate him. The striped bucket hat might be the brightest piece of clothing he wore. The man settled on the floor by his bed, upper-body leaned heavily on the mattress, and their entwined hands rested between them.

The man smiled, revealing sharp, sharp teeth. “ _Good evening, Ichigo-san_.”

“Good evening,” Ichigo replied, his fight-or-flight instinct kicking in reflexively. It never failed to make the man smile when his heart rate sped up. A clawed fingertip tapped lightly against his fluttering pulse. “Urahara-san.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm too tired to care about editing. (I'll fix it later.)


End file.
